Question on the legality of Military operating..

America is in a state of emergency every day, don't you watch the news?

The act specifically refers to the use of troops (excluding the Coast Guard) for enforcing what would normally be considered state/local law on non-federal property.  There are quite a few loopholes which include the use of National Guard under state control, situations specifically authorized by the President under the Insurrection Act and actions in support of Special Operations Command.

What the specific reason was in this situation I have no idea, but, as pointed out above, there are ways around the act.  A good example of working such loopholes would have been the troops in airports after 9-11 where, to the best of my knowledge, their use was justified by defining their presence as "back-up" for the security screeners and airport police/security which were providing the actual law enforcement presence.

Edit:  Wikipedia actually has a fairly decent article on this subject which includes some stuff that I missed.  Just so I can retain my claim to my tinfoil hat, I would like to state that the current erosion of the Posse Comitatus act (which I never referred to by name above - duh) is one of the things (along with the Patriot Act) that make me worry about our freedoms in the future.

Second Edit:  For grammar fail.


Edited by Mack - 27 March 2011 at 10:09pm

Ceesman762 wrote: SSOK, Go to Laguardia, JFK and Islip Macarthur AP and you will see the military there too.  You can find them at Penn Station as well.  Either the NY National Guard or the Airforce reserves.

Operation Empire Shield. The guard (parts of it) have been activated to provide security in NYC. That's why you'll see them around major metro areas.

Also, homeland security would over ride something like that law about it being illegal to operate, since it's in the interest of the country. Around holidays, the places that Ceesman mentioned are especially high in numbers of soldiers patrolling the area.

Edit- We technically are not in a "peace time" and have not been since 9/11. We have been engaged in the Global War on Terror since sometime during 2001, and I almost want to go ahead and say that was in August, in Afghanistan.





Edited by GI JOES SON - 27 March 2011 at 8:31pm

Bri- there are reports of units, granted special operations units, operating inside of Afghanistan prior to 9/11 up in the Kandahar province.

Also, on the thing about the 'war on terror', you're right, but we use it as a reason to do a number of things, including give a service ribbon for having served during the period of time from 9/11 until whenever. Never said they were good reasons..

brihard wrote: The 'war on terror' (disregarding the BS nature of the term) was 'declared' by Bush post 9/11. There were likely carious special operations interests in a variety of countries prior to that, and Afghanistan was certainly on the radar, but the 'invasion of Afghanistan' as the first act in the 'war on terror' came in October.

Noted. Operation Empire Shield has been around since a little after 9/11. Either way, i don't think it matters whether the US is "at war" or not, for any governor of a state to activate a national guard unit for security purposes really isn't a bad violation, if it even is one.

On another subject matter, have you ever been to your mountain warfare school? (i don't know what the exact title is) We had an E-7 come back from there last week, he said it was pretty cool. No idea how he got the slot, it was through his guard unit or something, but he enjoyed it.

Yeah, it's the same with the units here...the Sergeant didn't really want to go, but he was afraid to turn it down because in his guard unit, if you turn one school slot down, you just kissed goodbye any others that may come along. 

If you want to get technical, we've been at war since atleast 1950.